What about the Trinity?

Tomorrow is Trinity Sunday. It's no Christmas or Easter...so there won't be beautiful banners, flowers or cantatas from the choir. But it is an important Sunday on a topic that we rarely discuss in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

Recently I found myself struggling to explain the Trinity to a group of high school students. Wikipedia has a very helpful entry on the Doctrine of the Trinity: "God is one being who exists, simultaneously and eternally, as a mutual indwelling of three persons--the Father, the Son (Jesus of Nazareth) and the Holy Spirit." One God...three persons.

That all sounds good, but how can 3=1 or 1=3? Mathematically it just doesn't add up. Mary Anderson's 1998 Christian Century article (available through paid subscription to ATLAS) entitled "So explain it to Me."

Anderson says: "I was watching my grandmother sleep during her afternoon nap. As I contemplated her existence, I thought wisely. 'That's Grandmama, Mamma, and Odell.' She smiled in her sleep as I called her by the names used for her by her grandchildren, her daughter, and her husband. Three names, three relationships -- and yet the same person. Amazing!"

Maybe this is the best way that we know how to put words to the experiences that we have of God...to use the language of situations that are familiar to us. The Doctrine of the Trinity is one way that church tried to put words to the experience of a God who was One and yet interacted with creation in three distinct ways.

So in the end, mathematically 3 still does not equal 1...but in faith, the One God works in (at least) 3 different ways in order to meet creation in ways that are powerful and life-changing.

Journey on...